


Tricks of Treating

by filia_noctis



Category: Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters
Genre: Domestic Bliss, F/F, Future Fic, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 11:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2770580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/filia_noctis/pseuds/filia_noctis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Flo hates to be in a flurry, even  if she likes being in the middle of one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tricks of Treating

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queen_ypolita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_ypolita/gifts).



 

She has never told Nance this, but she isn’t over fond of pictures—be they on the nightstand or on the mantelpiece—when it comes to her sweetheart. She, who spends a part of her days burying herself in the crackle of paper and the chalk for ink, was disappointed vastly in her dearly beloved print and paper for the first time when she saw how it froze Nancy’s face on it. Her sweetheart is never frozen. She will never tell this to Nance: Nance clutches on to the picture with some self-mockery, some heartbreak, and a wagon’s worth of foolish pride. She can never see what Flo misses about it.

She loves Nancy moving around the house, like quicksilver, like mercury flowing out of a thermometer’s bulb—here, there and everywhere. She has never seen Nan King and Kitty Butler’s acts, but she would trade this for nothing. Not when even before all this, even with Lily taking up her days, she remembered Nancy as that one bright spot of easy, effortless gaiety full of brisk-talks and brisk-walks and brisk-laughter in the fogs and gas lamps of London. Not when Nancy owes her first nap in this house to the part of Flo’s better judgement that wouldn’t let her instinctive rage simmer down so she’d stop being distant and allow herself to show the panic, the worry, the mad urge to shake, and keep shaking her awake, grief and hate and hurt and rage be damned. The broken heap of the waxed doll in front of her was no Nancy Astley, never has been in her head. She still gets nightmares about it, and she, of all people has known and seen enough to know it wasn’t that bad.

So, she likes working at the supper table better and better, even when the dishes haven't quite been cleared off. Sure, there is no dust now, and the piles of paper are nearly always neatly arranged, and she doesn’t get quite so many smudges of ink all over herself with betraying blotters. But above and beyond all this, here her quiet, sedate, sensible little work desk with herself anchored in it always-already seems to be at the heart of a maelstrom spun by Nance, and she couldn’t resist it even if she tried. She would bring her office work home if she could. (Mrs. Macey needn’t know this, but she could be a full-time party worker the moment the party is on its feet enough to pay them somewhat, for every bit of herself invested in it. But also for this. To work from home more.)

There will, of course be no telling of this. But Nancy has been taught to read her quiet smiles and tiny sighs by now, she guesses.

So, she gets to surreptitiously watch Nancy dust and mop and cook and always, _always_ sing or hum (and it should be distracting—she has snapped at Ralph for reading aloud in the past—but it never is), and she has not seen many things that have left her this happy and safe and settled as in the midst of Nancy’s webs of domesticity. She is generally too busy to spend much thought on it, but she thinks it an unthought-of privilege when she ain’t thinking about it, and she is an addict to it all the same, all the more. Not just to get hot and clammy to watch Nance, it takes precious little for that, and Flo knows herself if Flo knows nothing else. But being caught up smack in the middle of Nan’s chores without upsetting either of their handiwork, with Nancy weaving invisible spools of hums and snorts and stir around her—hands and feet too sure, eyes to quick, mouth tilting now, and grimacing next, and grinning after; everything that she can do on stage, every act and laugh and bow can only, if ever, be a pale shadow.

She will never tell Nancy this and hurt her so, but the frozen, grey, overstuffed dummy in the photograph ain’t her sweetheart. Let all the girls in London make do with second bests.

She thinks Ralph—‘bless his soul—can see through her jump starts when she is sometimes a beat late to reply. It frustrates her a little to know this and watch her saint of a brother’s quiet smirk, but she is greedy this once and won’t stop. Nossir.

“Flo! Come give me a hand!”

Wait. No. Nothing can make her brave the kitchen, today of all days.

“I’m working!”

“ _Flo!_ The jelly is scorching my face something awful. You coming or _not_?”

Oh she is so _not_ taking a tumble in there: her uncle is the angel of her house, Ralph can be trusted with groceries, and she minds Cyril and always has to bring work home, and _does not_ do housework. They have settled this.

Ah well.

The kitchen isn’t as much a death trap as she anticipates, what with how it generally is during Nancy’s (extremely rewarding) flares of “cooking something nice”.

“What can I do, then?” If she hitches her skirt ever so carefully, maybe she won’t touch and spoil a thing, given how little space she will take.

“Well, you can’t keep grabbing at your skirt. I need your hands free, don’t I?” So much for trying to be a speck on the scenery. “There, get that dish on that table then, there’s a darlin’.”

She knows when Nancy suppresses a grin. _Devil’s armpits._ She can’t be teased into a kiss when her arms are full of scalding copper and boiling, smelly... _stuff_! Flo hates feeling like she is a bungling baboon. Nancy sets out the powdered sugar.

“That’s good. See, you didn’t even drop any! Now help me get the ‘shapes right.”

“I should hope not! And on this suit, too! Nancy, I _really_ have to go finish that letter...” Edging towards the door won’t help. Nancy has it blocked, slouching at the entry, her shirt front half-unbuttoned, her cheeks flushed and greasy, her fag tacked behind an ear, watching her. “I mean”, her voice always shakes when nervous, and she suddenly can’t quite meet her eyes, “You do them perfect, mine look like blobs of fat. Orange and pink fat. Is this really necessary? We’re taking him to the zoo. Boy can do without jellies and ‘shapes, even if he is starting school soon.”

“No. He won’t. ‘Get one from Aunt Florrie too. Just one? I’ll show you how. We won’t spoil the suit.” She can feel Nancy’s eyes tail her confused blush. Nance sounds distracted, but not distracted enough.

If this is Hell, she is a believer. A sweaty Nancy smelling like fags and oranges is now leaning to her, reaching for her hand, and she is too well-dressed for any of this, and there is too much foul orange boiling stuff in front of her.

So Flo does what Flo does best in the face of purgatory. She grimaces, and hopes the steadiness of her voice will see her through the tremor in her fingers as she says,” If they are in any shape after this. Go on, then.”


End file.
